Group testing was proposed by [1]} to screen enlisted soldiers for syphilis during World War II. The Dorfman procedure combines multiple samples together and tests the pooled samples, so that samples in a pool testing negative are cleared and samples in a pool testing positive are tested individually for identification. This significantly increases efficiency by screening multiple individuals with a single test. Since then, many generalizations of the Dorfman procedure have been developed and studied theoretically. Group testing is also widely applied in the surveillance and control of infectious diseases. For a review of recent theory and applications, see [2]} and [3]}.
